From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [490]
Establishing the Text
The manuscript of From Here to Eternity in the Rare Book and Special Collection Library was photocopied for my use. Just over 170 pages have changes and deletions. The editorial deletions were made by pencil marks, and the original word, phrase, sentence, paragraph, or entire page are legible.
Jones often wrote in the margin of the manuscript pages his objections to deletions: “I hate to lose this,” and “only for profanity.” When he made such objections, I have restored that passage. “One way, two way, and three way girls” was attacked by the editors but survived in the text.
Jones wanted such words as “fuck,” “fucking,” “cocksucker,” “asshole,” and “cunt” left in the text, and I have restored them wherever they were omitted. The huge penis is once again rampant.
I have restored the discussion about art between Warden and Mazzioli, the wet dream episode, and the extended pages on “cunt-pictures.” Deletions in the queer passages are returned to the places where they belonged. Sections of the quarrels between Warden and Karen have been returned to the text.
If Jones revised a section, I have allowed that revision to stand.
James Jones wrote a better novel than the one published by Scribner’s in 1951. Burroughs Mitchell and Horace Manges were too afraid of a book filled with the language of soldiers to publish From Here to Eternity as it was written. It is now restored to its original state plus a few revisions made by Jones himself.
George Hendrick
Afterword Notes
The letter Jones wrote Perkins proposing a novel about the peacetime army is printed in George Hendrick, editor, To Reach Eternity: The Letters of James Jones. New York: Random House, 1989, pp. 55–59.
Perkins’s reasons for rejecting They Shall Inherit the Laughter are discussed in Hendrick, ed., To Reach Eternity, p. 60.
The text of Perkins’s telegram to Jones is in George Garrett, James Jones. New York: Harcourt Brace, Jovanovich, 1984, p. 88.
Jones’s telegram to Perkins is in Garrett, James Jones, p. 88.
Jones’s belief that he could write From Here to Eternity in six months is from Hendrick, ed., To Reach Eternity, p. 58.
The quotations about “stumbling along in the dark” and the problems of writing the second novel are from Garrett, James Jones, p. 89.
Biographical information about Burroughs Mitchell is from his The Education of an Editor. Garden City: Doubleday, 1980. See also Editor to Author: The Letters of Maxwell E. Perkins, ed. by John Hall Wheelock. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1950, and A. Scott Berg, Maxwell Perkins: Editor of Genius, New York: Dutton, 1978.
Lowney’s letter to Jones about Tolstoy is from the Handy Writers’ Collection in Archives/Special Collections, University of Illinois at Springfield.
Jones to Harry Handy about the killing of his character Prewett is from Hendrick, ed., To Reach Eternity, p. 152.
Jones to Mitchell, February 27, 1950, about completing Eternity is from Hendrick, ed., To Reach Eternity, pp. 107–108. On the novel as a memorial to Perkins, p. 157.
Jones’s long list of objections to the changes in the Eternity manuscript is in his letter to Mitchell, March 29, 1950, in Hendrick, ed., To Reach Eternity, pp. 160–164.
Jones on making changes in the text to keep Eternity from being a Henry Miller “limited edition” is from Hendrick, ed., To Reach Eternity, p. 167.
The “score sheet” is discussed in Hendrick, ed., To Reach Eternity, pp. 173–174.
Helen Howe appears in the documentary James Jones: Reveille to Taps, produced by J. Michael Lennon and Jeffrey Van Davis. The text of her remarks is found in “Glimpses: James Jones, 1921–1977.” Paris Review, vol. 29, #103. 1987, p. 212.
Jones horsetrading with Manges is from Hendrick, ed., To Reach Eternity, p. 174.
The advertising budget for Eternity is from Frank MacShane, Into Eternity: The Life of James Jones, American Writer. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1985, p. l04; the sales figures for May, 1951, are on p. 107.
Mailer’s comment on Eternity is from MacShane, Into Eternity, p. 105.
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